Lasker Award winner H. Michael Shepard offers Damon Runyon “payback”
After completing a Damon Runyon Fellowship in 1980, H. Michael Shepard, PhD, launched a research group at Genentech that would go on to develop the groundbreaking cancer therapy trastuzumab (brand name Herceptin). The first monoclonal antibody to target a cancer-causing protein, Herceptin is now standard treatment for HER2+ breast cancer and has saved thousands of lives since its approval in 1998. Dr. Shepard and his collaborators received the 2019 Lasker Prize in recognition of this work.
As an alumnus, Dr. Shepard has also been a generous supporter of Damon Runyon scientists.
“This is payback!” he says. “Damon Runyon helped me launch my career back in the 1970s, and I wanted to provide opportunities for the next generation of scientists to do something wonderful.”
He is very excited about the current era of cancer research, in which the implementation of rapid, cost-effective genome sequencing makes precision oncology possible. It is now easier to identify patient-relevant drugs in the existing armamentarium, he says, and to identify patients most likely to respond to a given treatment. Advances in synthetic biology are also enabling the design of more specific therapeutics.
His advice for young scientists? Have a really, really big goal.
“When I set out on my path that resulted in trastuzumab, I was motivated by seeing how brain cancers were treated—basically, ‘slash and burn.’ I had this idea that, with the right resources, I could find a way to treat cancer that didn’t make people sick. Eventually, we figured it out. Scientists really can change the world.”
